First time NFT/CFL/Canna/strainhunters grow

Discussion in 'Hydroponic Grow Journals' started by Roboturner, Apr 13, 2015.

  1. #1 Roboturner, Apr 13, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 15, 2015
    Hello everyone. I will be starting my first hydroponics grow in the next couple of days.

    The setup is as follows:

    GT201i NFT 20litre tank
    Rockwool plugs and Cubes
    Canna Aqua Vega/Flores, Start, Rhizotonic, Cannazym, Boost, PK 13/14, Dutch Pro Bloom pH down.
    Either or both 200w dual spec CFL (standard reflector) / 60w 6500k CFL (clip on) for VEG
    300W CFL 2700k bulb (standard reflector) for flower.
    80x80x160cm tent.
    4" carbon filter, ducting, fan kit.
    9" desk fan or multiple pc fans to move the air.
    EC/pH pens etc
    And finally Strainhunters Money Maker (Master Kush x Hindu Kush x Skunk) 80%/20% indica/sativa.****UPDATED****
    ***********NOW GROWING NIRVANA SEEDS - SWISS CHEESE***********

    I've grown in soil with poor quality nutes and seeds with worse than bad results (unsurprisingly). BUT I saw a friend of a friends' setup and was totally inspired to invest and do it right. Still waiting on the tent and some if the nutes, but I will be preparing the seeds tomorrow.

    Hopefully this journal will be fairly popular and will inspire others.

    To be clear I am growing for personal use because I moved house and have zero weed contacts in the area.

    If anyone has experience with the nutes I am using I could do with a little advice. I plan on using the guide on canna-Uk website set at light feed to make my nutes last. Is this the way to go?

    Finally I will post at least weekly, with pics, pH, EC etc when I change the reservoir and possibly more often if I hit any trouble.
     
  2. Important Update:
     
    Contrary to the title of this topic, the grow is now actually Swiss Cheese from Nirvana Seeds.
     
    The reason for this is simple, I needed to change the lights in my tent to 12/12 to flower some other plants and I had these 3 Swiss Cheese that I had planned to grow guerrilla style outdoors . Since this grow is all new equipment and some if it hasn't arrived yet, I just though I would use these seedlings to claw back a bit of time and speed up the overall grow.
     
    View attachment 155090
     
    Anyway here are the seedlings, they are about 10 days old and had been in transplanted to soil for a day or so before i pulled them up and washed out the rockwool, I think they got a bit shocked, but they seem to be recovering OK.
     
    They are in a propagator with the dome soaked in water with a little Canna Rhizotonic to help them deal with the shock and promote the root growth. They are under a 60W 6500k CFL @24hrs.
     
    Most of my new set up has arrived except the tent, Canna Start, pH down, and the calibration liquids for my pH pen and the 3x3" rockwool cubes for the NFT tank.
     
    Anyway, as soon as the tent arrives and everything is setup, I'll do a bunch of setup pics and with any luck I should be able to get the bigger cubes in the dome and start them on a full dose of Canna Start and Rhizotonic.
     
    Finally does anyway know of this nutes range, I picked up 3 small bottles in a pound shop. Thanks
     
    View attachment 155092
    View attachment 155091
     
  3. #3 Roboturner, Apr 17, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 17, 2015
    Ok so got the rest of the setup today and have the tent ready to go. Getting the cover on the frame was a pain in the ass.

    I have a lot more space with the NFT tank in than I thought I would have so I decided to pop another few seeds and do 3 or 4 more plants in pots with coco/perlite since I have the space, seeds and nutes. On e they have vegged a bit ill move them to my other tent to flower then flower the ones on the NFT alone.

    I've got a Northern Lights Auto & Super Skunk Fem from Vision free with my Strainhunters Money maker seeds.

    Pic to come once everything is setup tomorow morning.
     
  4. Quick Update:
     
    Seedlings put in the bigger Rockwool cues to prepare for the NFT tank, put my other seeds in rockwool to sprout, 4x moneymaker (3 to flower, one to clone from), 1 NL Auto and 1 Superskunk (hopefully will become a motherplant). Got a couple of KC45 clones too.
    View attachment 155175
     
    Got most of my nutes for the grow too
    View attachment 155178
     
     
    and heres the tent, the tank only takes up just over half the floorspace, so i think i can veg another couple of plants in there and move the biggest out to flower in a second tent.
    View attachment 155177
    View attachment 155176
     
  5. Good luck with the grow bro!!
     
  6. Quick Update:
     
    Had a minor mishap with some of my seeds, but my Swiss Cheese and a Super Skunk are fine. Super Skunk is going into coco and the Swiss Cheese went into the NFT Tank a couple of days ago.
     
    View attachment 155467
    View attachment 155465
    View attachment 155464
    View attachment 155463
    View attachment 155466
     
    I had a couple of small fans just now just to keep the air moving. As you can see from the pics I have a the first 5 leave sets coming in and the single leaves are getting yellow, I assume that's because they have just been on Canna Start and Rhizotonic, so hopefully getting their first dose of Canna Aqua Vega will help them out. The roots are only just poking out the bottom of the big cubes which is an issue, but hopefully they will begin to grow in a bit better now they have a lot of light and stuff. Worried about the amount of algae forming on the cube those, going to cover them up with some opaque white plastic sheeting. anyone got a tip or two for fixing that?
     
  7. Nearly two weeks since the last update, didn't seem that long!!
     
    2 of the three plants are coming along very nicely, the other is still super short and slow growing. I topped the tallest (middle) one as it was forcing me to raise the light, which made it really far from the other two, its just a 65W CFL 6500k so not super powerful. I'm thinking another 2 weeks of veg, then the lights go to 12/12.
     
    View attachment 156225
    View attachment 156230
    View attachment 156229
    View attachment 156227
    View attachment 156231
    my wee Superskunk in coco experiment is coming along, its super squat even for only its 2nd node, its only under a 23w 2700k cfl.
    View attachment 156232
     
     
    and finally my 2 KC45's having moved into this tent for the height, they finally started showing sex after about 18 weeks, despite being sold as regular auto seeds. I read up on them a while back and a lot of people noticed they don't act like autos, and only flower at a certain height, instead of based on time. Here a cuple of shot just after being lollipopped a bit, They ave been LST'd, Topped and supercropped over the last 4 months. I used them for practice more than anything, I had pretty much gave up on them even flowering. but not really looking forward to harvest in probably 8 or 9 weeks.
     
    View attachment 156223
    View attachment 156219
    View attachment 156220
    View attachment 156221
    View attachment 156222
     
  8. Time for another update, been over 2 weeks, sorry about that.
     
    There's been some change, my small 80 x 80 x 160cm tent now has the NFT tank with 3 Swiss cheese on the right, and 2 KC45 in 10 litre buckets on the right, the 300w 2700k CFL is over the 2 big sativas and the 200w dual spec CFL is over the 3 hydroponic Swiss Cheese. With some insulation blocks under the NFT tank the plants are within a foot of each other height wise.  The lights are now on 12/12 and have been for over a week.
     
    As I mentioned before i had big trouble trying to get the KC45 to flower. They are listed as a Brazialian Sativa / Russian Ruderalis hybrid, regular autoflowering seed. But they never showed any sex until i switched to 12/12 after almost 5 months of vegging. The pistils started showing and I put them back on 18/6 to see what happened. They seems to stop flowering, so now they are back on 12/12 and the signs of flowering are increasing with pistils at all the nodes and a bit more of an increase in height. I lollipopped them a bit more too.
     
    View attachment 156936
    View attachment 156937
    View attachment 156938
    View attachment 156939
    View attachment 156941
    View attachment 156940
    View attachment 156933
     
    The Swiss Cheese are looking good, the small one at the back caught up a little when I stuck an extra light over it for a week, but its still pretty short, no topping for than one. The other 2 were topped and the bigger one had some LST to stop it reaching the light. They have had there first feed with a little flowering feed in it. I took 3 clones of the biggest one now that its well over a month old. These will be the next batch then I'll change strain.
     
    View attachment 156929
    View attachment 156928
    View attachment 156927
    View attachment 156930
    View attachment 156942
    View attachment 156931
     
     
    Finally I have a load of plants vegging in my second tent. There's the 3 clones on a propagator. A KC45 clone that's rooted and in Coco Coir, A nice Super Skunk from seed that's very squat and may end up being a mother in the future. And of course there's the 6 Strainhunters Moneymaker girls from seed that are coming along very nicely. I'm a little surprised how well they are doing considering they are only under a 60w 6500K, but they are on 24hrs just now.

     
    View attachment 156943
    View attachment 156944
    View attachment 156945
     
  9. Update time:
     
    KC45 (soil)- Yes they are definitely photoperiods. They are full on sativas so they are taking a loooong time to bud up. I took even more off the bottom since there were still several shoots and bud sites getting little light. They are about 5ft including the pots.
     
    View attachment 157656
    View attachment 157657
    View attachment 157658
    View attachment 157659
     
    Swiss Cheese (NFT) - showing first signs of flowering, the plant at the back is still pretty small, the front one getting bigger and the middle one has 4 long shoots each with at least 6 good bud sites. I'm not a fan of the NFT so far, maybe the yield will change my mind later.
     
    View attachment 157661
    View attachment 157662
    View attachment 157663
     
    Moneymaker x 6 and Superskunk (soil, perlite, coco coir mixture)
     
    I transplanted these into larger pots, the superskunk and 3 Moneymakers went into 11litre buckets, and the other 3 Moneymakers went into 10cm pots, one of which was double height, to see how that helps it grow. The mixture they were transplanted into was about 60% coco, 30% soil, 10% perlite or vermiculite. It seems to drain very well, stay moist for longer and keep very airy. The plants exploded in size after being transplanted, probably because of the increase in nutrients available because of the soil. They will still get the Canna Coco nutes for now, maybe I will give them Canna Terra Flores when it comes to flowering but most likely just stick with the Canna Coco since it does veg and flowering.
     
    View attachment 157664
    View attachment 157666
    View attachment 157665
    The big plant pictured is the Superskunk, the rest are Moneymakers. The wee clone at the back is a KC45 adn the 3 into propagator are Swiss Cheese
     
  10. Update on the KC45 plants:


    View attachment 158257
    View attachment 158256
    View attachment 158255
    View attachment 158254
    View attachment 158253
    View attachment 158252
    View attachment 158251
    View attachment 158250
    View attachment 158249


    So the two plants are super tall now and have basically stopped all vertical growth, the buds are getting bigger, but there's still not much crystal formation. even under the flash its hard to see much at all. I hope they will get a lot thicker over the next few weeks. With any luck they should finish in the next month. I'm not actually sure how long they have been flowering with all the hassle getting them to bud. One plant has thicker buds and has about 4 big tops and a couple of smaller offshoots. The other had a 7 or 8 big tops and a few offshoots and its definitely got smaller buds. I'll be interested to weigh what comes out of each to see if they will produce the same.

     

Share This Page